​Use of e-cigarettes surpasses traditional kind among students

The use of electronic cigarettes among middle and high school students in the United States has surpassed the use of traditional ones for the first time, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

In fact, electronic
cigarette use among high school students essentially tripled
between 2013 and 2014, according to data from the CDC’s 2014
National Youth Tobacco Survey. Last year, 4.5 percent of students
surveyed had smoked an e-cigarette sometime in the month prior to
being asked. In 2014, that number grew to 13.5 percent.

Yet in the same timeframe, the use of traditional cigarettes has
fallen substantially, from 12.7 percent to 9.2 percent. That’s
the biggest one-year drop in more than 10 years, Reuters
reported.

With e-cigarettes among the youth on the rise, new questions are
being raised about whether or not the news should be celebrated,
especially since the long-term consequences of e-cigarette
smoking is unclear.

“It's the first uptick in children using tobacco products in
a generation. This is a very alarming finding,” CDC Director
Tom Frieden said Thursday, as quoted by the Huffington Post. “The tobacco industry
spends more in a couple days than we do in an entire year on
educating the public.”

E-cigarettes may produce vapor rather than smoke, but they still
contain nicotine, which some fear could lead users to eventually
move on to regular cigarettes. Even if they don’t, though,
nicotine can be addictive and lead to developmental problems.

“Nicotine is dangerous for kids at any age,” Frieden
said. “The human brain development still in process during
these years, and nicotine use is associated with lasting
cognitive impairment.”

Anti-tobacco advocates also raised alarm at the way e-cigarettes
are being marketed towards younger demographics. Unlike
traditional cigarettes, there are no regulations on the books
regarding how the products are advertised, but some believe they
have noticed the same kind of strategies resurfacing with
e-cigarettes.

“These are the same images, the same themes and the same role
models that the cigarette industry used 50 years ago,” Matt
Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said to
the Washington Post. “It’s the Marlboro Man
reborn. It’s the Virginia Slims woman recreated, with the exact
same effect...this is not an accident.”

As noted by The Verge, the Food and Drug Administration
has expressed a willingness to regulate the industry but has not
actually moved to do so. It’s currently working on banning the
cigarettes for those under 18 years of age – as with regular
cigarettes – but it’s not looking at rules for marketing or the
various types of flavors that are sold.

Others find the concern over e-cigarettes to be overblown. They
argue that while underage children should be able to gain access
to such products, there’s no solid evidence indicating that
students will graduate to traditional cigarettes after using.

Additionally, they say e-cigarettes are keeping children away
from normal ones, which kill more than 480,000 people a year
(including secondhand smoke), according to CDC data.

“The CDC should really be jumping for joy at the fact that
smoking rates are declining. This is a huge success,” said
Michael Siegel, a professor and tobacco control specialist at
Boston University’s School of Public Health, to the Post.
“Instead, they are using this as another opportunity to
demonize e-cigarettes.”